Circle
by Padakin
Summary: Five times Severus Snape called for Lily Evans.
1. Smoke

Disclaimer: I do not own _Harry Potter_.

Summary: Five times Severus Snape called for Lily Evans.

Genre: Angst/Friendship

Rating: K+

Circle

1

He liked to say her name in the dark with a sing-song cadence, slow and sweet. He liked to narrow the world to her, to look out of the window at the hazy stars and softly call for her. Sometimes, the smoke from the neighbor's chimney would start to spin when he said her name. It curled into intricate coils and wafted toward where she lived.

He liked to think that she could hear him, even all those houses away from Spinner's End. That snug in her safe, Muggle house with her loving parents and best friend of a sister she was listening for him. He liked to think that she whispered back.


	2. Summer

Disclaimer: I do not own _Harry Potter_.

Summary: Five times Severus Snape called for Lily Evans.

Genre: Angst/Friendship

Rating: K+

Circle

2

It wasn't true that they never spoke again, that he left her at the portrait hole and fell headlong into darkness. She broke him, but it was a slow break that started out the barest of fractures. Remembering that day was like reading shorthand—a simple sentence that explained a more painful whole.

He saw her at the playground that summer. She was sitting on the swings and her feet were bare. The air was thick.

"I was thinking about you," she said.

She was all he ever thought about.

"I thought…we could talk for a while?"

The hope in her eyes lit his own.


	3. Solitary

Disclaimer: I do not own _Harry Potter_.

Summary: Five times Severus Snape called for Lily Evans.

Genre: Angst/Friendship

Rating: K+

Circle

3

She defied definition. She wasn't a witch, a woman or a Muggle-born. She was brilliant red and searing green; jokes and warmth and solidity. Temper and flaws. She took too long to tell stories and never arrived on time. She was the one who held up the good in him and dusted it off, displayed that small piece on the mantel for him to see.

He hadn't spoken to her in a year when he got the Mark. But afterward he called to her all the same, lying in his old bed in Spinner's End. He clenched his fists against the burn and whispered her name. There wasn't any answer, and no smoke wafted on the horizon.


	4. Swingset

Disclaimer: I do not own _Harry Potter_.

Summary: Five times Severus Snape called for Lily Evans.

Genre: Angst/Friendship

Rating: K+

Circle

4

He never knew when she would be at the park that summer. They had never sent letters in the past; there was no need. She was simply there when things were getting particularly ugly, running for ice or a bandage or just taking his hand, content to sit in silence.

She was always on the swings when he arrived, but she didn't fly anymore. He didn't ask her to. They were older now and things were not the same. But he still called for her on some hot days, sat for hours with his head bent toward her. He liked to watch the light hit her face when she looked away.

Later, he wondered if he should have just told her. Later, when he felt bitter and furious and trapped, he wondered how she could have been so blind.

But when the years had gone by and the reason she was dead sat down in front of him, he wondered if knowing would have made any difference at all.


	5. Slide

Disclaimer: I do not own _Harry Potter_.

Summary: Five times Severus Snape called for Lily Evans.

Genre: Angst/Friendship

Rating: K+

Circle

5

They had it out in the cold of the dungeons. He wasn't sure, analyzing their words over and over in the Pensieve, how it all began. It simply had, a neat, icy avalanche of harsh words and accusations that broke them apart. Their fury started a fire in the hearth. The flames burned without any heat.

"It'll never be enough, Sev."

He couldn't—wouldn't—understand what she meant. He said nothing and she collapsed, not to the ground, but inwardly somehow. When he remembered, he thought that there should have been an audible crack.

"You know, I used to sit at my window at night and I'd think I could hear you call."

Her voice was dead and it nearly stopped his heart. But only nearly, because his heart was gone by then.

"I guess I was wrong, wasn't I?"

Her words came out a whisper, childlike and searching. When she left he didn't stop her. The fire went out and the smoke pooled at his feet, choking and gray.


End file.
